Keep making noise

At what point have I invited attention here? Or is it the case that I’ve got my head down, keys between my fingers in my pocket, ignoring my boyfriend’s text messages lest I become distracted and vulnerable, trying to simply get the fuck home? It doesn’t matter, because as a woman on the street – a public space and by default a male space – I’m fair game.

The narrative between my female friends and I is tedious and exhausting. ‘I’m sorry you had to go through that’, we say with almost weekly-regularity. ‘That’s shit’. ‘Are you okay?’ ‘At least you got home safe’. At least you got home safe. Like the entirely feasible and almost unsurprising alternative is not getting home safe, and if you’re aware of my back story you’ll know that actually, not getting home safe is a very real and possible outcome. How many men message each other after a night out (or in fact after a bloody movie and a pizza at a friend’s house) with ‘Ah well, at least you got home safe’?

We don’t know what the fuck to say to each other anymore. The above placatory sentences are meaningless. ‘I’m sorry you had to go through that’ is meaningless. Of course I’m sorry my friends had to go through that. Any human female who’s deigned to walk unchaperoned in public has been through that. I’m a human female and the very fact that we’re friends indicates that I can’t tolerate that kind of shit. So… what? An eye-roll emoji? A fucking shrug? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Do we seriously live in a world where our friends message us to say they feared for their safety and we’re like ‘AH WELL. C’EST LA VIE. At least you’re alive’, simply because it happens with such alarming regularity they may as well be talking about the weather?

Fuck.

So we make noise. We make noise about this bullshit in digital spaces and the results are mixed. Take, for example, an episode a few weeks ago when I challenged a man in a garage who deemed me too delicate and precious to put air into my own goddamn car tyres. I was called a hero and a feminist pioneer, but also a liar, a bitch and – tremendously – mentally unstable. The latter insults not just by men either, sadly, but by several women who subscribe to a form of institutionalised misogyny that – hands up – I think we’ve all been prey to at some point (‘I’m not like other girls.’ ‘I prefer to be friends with men because there’s less drama.’ ‘I’m a “cool” girl.’ And so on).

And I’m sure more bullshit will follow. But the important thing is that women keep making noise about this. Because until these digital spaces existed in which we now have the opportunity to make noise, this entrenched misogyny was all but invisible to our decent-thinking male friends, unless they witnessed it first-hand. And even then, well… How many times have you gone out wearing a ring on your left hand so men know you’re ‘off limits’? How many times have you gone out with a group of friends and some guy won’t leave you alone so you’ve asked a male friend to pretend to be your boyfriend? And how many times has the perp apologised to your ‘boyfriend’ for his behaviour, instead of you? The silver lining here – faint as it may be – is that in drawing attention to this issue we’re able to create a new awareness among men who don’t subscribe to this entrenched social misogyny. The fact is, they’re the ones with the power to change the situation.

So keep making noise, even if it makes people uncomfortable. Because you know what’s uncomfortable? A large 6’4” man angrily demanding a blow job on a dark street. A man staring at your ass as you inflate your tyres. A man punching you in the face because you’re trying to stop him beating his girlfriend to a pulp. A man smashing your head off a car bonnet simply because he’s having a bad day. Fuck anyone who pushes back against these experiences – and your experiences – because it makes them feel uncomfortable.

The best thing about being older is feeling safer. As a young girl, teenager and young adult being a female was so unsafe. As a child I was subject to sexual abuse by two relatives and one stranger. The abuse from one of those relatives continued into my early teens. That was when the constant ‘show us your tits’ and regular groping in the school ground started. The grab of the breast, usually hard, as you walk in the hallways and you look around angry but can’t see who it was. Just a normal but hated part of life. Then there was one guy who was all over me and I was trapped. It was scary, really scary. I don’t know how I managed to talk him into walking away. Or the groups of young men calling out, or the one that surrounded me and I was terrified. Young adulthood was better, but still too many unwanted advances, not the nice kind either, and the call-outs from building sites. I’m mostly invisible to men now, but I have daughters I worry for. Beautiful girls who I don’t want to have go through any of that, not even once.

I’m 52 and not feeling ‘older and safer’….it still happens. Men I don’t know approaching me on the street and making comments, gangs of workmen staring and commenting, guys on trains deliberately sitting opposite and leering, and I’m certainly no supermodel/bimboesque type. It doesn’t make it me feel anything except angry and pissed off that it still happens. The good thing is that being older I have the balls to stare back or be indifferent if I choose and I am a lot less scared because I know these men are usually more bark than bite, but when I walk the streets after dark alone I also have years of survivor skills honed and attuned. It makes me angry I still need them and that any woman needs to feel unsafe and it is so encouraging to hear and see young women speaking out because it was certainly something we didn’t do back in the day…..that gives me hope the time will come when we will all feel safe.

“And how many times has the perp apologised to your ‘boyfriend’ for his behaviour, instead of you?”

Had this after a night out with my girlfriend. I was unlocking my bike at 3am in the morning, while she was walking ahead (she didn’t have a bike). A guy is walking in our direction and starts catcalling her. She just turns ‘ignore’ mode on, while I quickly walk up next to her. He notices me, sees my annoyed face and apologises to me. At which point I tell him to fucking apologise to her because she is not my property. Think he got the message.

I didn’t realise the scale and pervasiveness of this until recently, when I started reading more blogs and tweets on feminism. Keep up the good work! Helps initially clueless guys like me to educate themselves and join the movement.

How long, oh lord, how long? Think of me as that little old lady in that photo, holding a sign that says, ‘I can’t believe I still have to protest this shit.’ I’m sixty-three, and I’ve been dealing with this since I was twelve.

Toughen up woman! It’s a shitty world. Guys might not get asked for a blowjob or fuck, but we get stabbed and killed. But hey, you were approached by some asshole who treats women as objects, so you respond by objectifying males as thugs and violent and sex crazed rapists.

Yeah cos women never get “stabbed and killed” you idiot !! Women might just get bashed regularly and sometimes killed by husbands, partners or exes in their own homes AS WELL as being harassed on the streets daily by strangers. Get a damn clue !! Yes men have high murder rates and guess who is killing them bright spark – other men !

Tony, I’m curious. Does it take something away from you – some sort of status, or recognition, or sympathy, or attention, or anything at all – to have people recognize the simple and provable fact that the number one danger to women is men? Not YOU, specifically (although your attitude, here, doesn’t exactly bode well for you being an exception to that specific group). But men. There is more evidence out there than anyone could possibly require to prove this. The only reason to argue the way that you are is if you feel as if you, personally, are somehow slighted by this being the reality.

So what is it? Do you need recognition that men who are the victims of violence – sexual, domestic, or otherwise – are generally ALSO being victimized by other men? Because that’s absolutely true, too. Do you need a cookie because you, personally, haven’t been violent towards a woman, or harassed a woman, or basically been a shitty human being because you felt entitled to a woman’s body (if that is, indeed, the case. Remains to be seen, considering the vehemence of your protestations)? Because we generally don’t give out cookies for not being douchebags.

You think YOU’RE (note the proper usage of the apostrophe) special, because you have a penis? Nevermind. That last was rhetorical. Of course you do. You sassy little snowflake.

Whoa there Tony! Bit too quick to protest don’t you think? She simply shamed *the specific individuals concerned*! This is fair enough I reckon!
Placing this insidious form of subjugation and bullying fairly and squarely in sharp relief *is* necessary in order for those unaware to gain understanding of the problem! Yes we know that not *all* men are misogenists and rapists but, that said, I have only been attacked, sexually or otherwise by *men*! I am not alone in this experience!
Women are more vulnerable and whilst there is some value in becoming tougher and more resilient, do we really want to *man up*? Also should we be afraid to walk around at our own convenience out of fears for others’ lack of respect and self control!
We all know that *not all men*……………!
So the men that aren’t, need to help demolish the sense of privilege, entitlement and shameful disrespect inherent in the few who perpetrate these crimes! To stand up for the victimised, to refuse to laugh along in locker rooms at misogenistic jokes; to put outspoken chauvenists, bulliues and sexpests right publically, when the occasion demands, rather than maybe taking so much time to indignantly chide the women who dare speak out, for it is not the women to blame here. Your comment, I’m afraid, perfectly embodies the *victim shaming* attitude, central to *rape culture*!

Tony, everyone realizes we live in an unsafe world where something can happen at a moments notice. I believe the point of the piece (at least in part) is to question why it has to be so? Can’t men, in general, simply treat women with the same type of respect that they expect from others? She’s not denigrating all men by asserting the right to a life free from harassment. Clearly, there’s reason to fear when you’re likely to be the weaker party in the event of a physical interaction. Show some respect for her and yourself and see beyond the anger to the point of what she’s discussing.

Things are (slowly) changing. But, the world is always going to have ignorant arseholes. I remember moving to Sydney from NZ in the early-90s and being gobsmacked when a working site downed tools to wolf-whistle at a woman. Apemen like that hadn’t been seen in NZ for 20+ years. Men here had been “embarrassed” out of that sort of behaviour decades earlier. A similar thing happened in Melbourne five years later; I got a cab ride with an Indian driver (turban and all). We stopped at a crossing to let a young woman cross the road. She’d inadvertently tucked her dress into her knickers, as you do. The driver said to me: “Look at her. She deserves to be raped dressing like that.” I immediately got out of the cab and walked. I owed him about $10 bucks of fare, but just walked away with that revolting old man yelling after me. I’m sorry for the writer’s experience and I’m sorry that there are still so many, frustrated, stupid men among us. But, believe me; they’re diminishing all the time.

Also, good on you for stiffing that cabbie. Fucking hell, raped because of clothing? How disgusting can you get? It’s that kind of attitude that keeps a lot of rape victims from coming forward in the first place.

Keep speaking you. As a fourth year old male I’m amazed, and have been for decades at how many people don’t understand how dehumanizing this behavior is. I wish I knew how to help end this besides just continuing to tell people who say things like “I can’t stand that supervisor for having such small boobs” or “I don’t like to listen to her in meetings, all l can think of is how her lips would feel on my…..” and so on and so no. Really guys. Women are not here just for your sexual gratification. Think about what it is like to be treated like meat every fifth or sixth person you encounter.

The best way you can help end this is to keep speaking up. As a man, you are going to be taken more seriously than any of us women. Keep trying to open the eyes of other men so they realize that this behavior both exists rampantly and is unacceptable.

I grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood and was mugged and threatened with physical and sexual violence on a regular basis during my childhood and teens, almost exclusively by black males in their teens and early twenties. Does this mean I then jump to the conclusion that black men are more violent and misogynistic? Fuck no, that would be stupid. You have a lot of bad experiences and that’s horrible and I know how exasperating it can feel, there are some real fucking assholes in the world. Come on though, this is life, most people are assholes, men and women, it’s not all evidence of some hidden oppressive system holding you down. If someone is an asshole to me I walk away, if they are genuinely threatening then I report them to the police. If you really want to fight misogyny there are women’s refuges and countless charities that work with abuse survivors, they need volunteers and support. Being permanently offended has become almost a cult in the feminist community and in my humble opinion it needs to stop. False victimhood doesn’t achieve anything other than spreading distrust and misunderstanding, I hope we all reach a place soon where we can rise above it.

How many of them have stories of sexual harassment? Of rape threats? Of being insulted on a regular basis?

Sure, this may happen to some men, just like being beaten. I was assaulted as a kid (by guys, btw), beaten too (also by guys, thanks). But I was the exception, and it remains a lone experience to this day.

When you speak to women from age 80 to 16 who don’t know each other and they describe similar experiences, when your mom (un-sexy and old as she is) tells you she’s been called a slut for rinding a bicycle while in a dress… We, as men, know nothing of this. Nothing.

Thank you Angel! Agreed. Perma-anger and false victim hood is truly more damaging to society than a horny dude mustering up the courage to see if a good looking female might be down for some fun. Afterall there are droves of women walking the streets hoping a man will offer them money.
Sexual interest should be seen as a compliment as long as it stays verbal.

Thank you, but I’m not saying one is worse than the other, both are bad, it’s about perception. In this case I wouldn’t say it was just innocent “sexual interest”, a way to express that would just be to say hello and introduce yourself, not ask how much it costs for blowjob. That’s both offensive and demeaning. However, I do not think it somehow correlates to a patriarchal system of oppressive misogyny, and that it in any way reflects the view and actions of men in general.

“should be seen as a compliment if verbal” — part of the issue is telling people how they should perceive something. The fact that it is not seen as a compliment should be enough. If you have trouble recognizing that you’re beyond helping through a blog post.

Angel, by the time a woman is in a refuge or has become a victim of abuse, it is too late to fight misogyny. There IS a system in place and there has been for generations which is why these things happen.I don’t believe all people are assholes, it’s the way we have to live to survive under the current system that brings out bad behaviour. It’s much more than just a question of being offended, it is the need to change the way things are by speaking out and showing different ways of being together in society on all levels. Change is a given, let’s all help to direct it in a positive way.

Rarely do I encounter writings that actually make me tear up. But this certainly qualifies as one of them. I have so many thoughts on this that they’re all fighting my thumbs to get out into this virtual space. From how I lost my virginity (to a person whom I “fake-dated” turned to “real” dating to avoid unwanted attention from a particular teenage boy at the time,) to how I didn’t want to move to a “bad neighborhood” knowing I’d be using public transportation to get around (all the while having my now ex-fiance wonder why I had such issues with that location,) to changing my wardrobe to baggy men’s clothing in my high school days to try and avoid regular blatant sexual harrassment, to having to say to men who were hitting on me that I have a boyfriend just to try and make them stop, to saying myself “I don’t make friends easily with women, I’m more like ‘one of the guys,'” to holding my voice back so as to not appear bitchy (whereas men can do so, and are seen as powerful as a result,) to saying “I’m not a feminist, but…” to… And I really could go on for hours with these stories. It’s sickening. Truly sickening. I whole-heartedly agree with everything in this post, and have noticed ways in which I put myself into a mold to protect the fragile male ego. But I’m done doing so. I am a woman. I matter just as much, if not more, than any man. I do not require men’s approval for anything, especially not validation or protection. Shout it out, ladies. Make the noise. Make our voices heard. I am woman. Hear me roar.

So the guy called you a name when you turned them down
Yeah, blows theres retards like that out there
Ill say, even as a man, there are more retarded men versus women on day-to-day basis but i wouldn’t let it bother you so much

No better than a homeless person approaching you for change or a group of hoodlums hollering at you
Simply refusing, i have been attacked by random strangers on the streets
You might be tired of hearing “at least you safe now” but that is a real reality, gotta use more caution

The right thing to do is ignore those retards and continue with your life safely and walk away
Its not worth risking your life to speak out to these people in-person unless you got a group to back you up
But thats a general rule for both men and women
Got to share the world with these retards

“Retard” is not appropriate as an insult. If you mean to say that a person is behaving like a jerk or a bully or a rascal or a blockhead, then say that. Retardation is a physiological impairment–a medical condition from which no one can choose to suffer. It is not a behavior. And it is not acceptable to use it as a term of insult.

I like that you had your keys on your fingers and were dialed in to your surroundings. Of course, it is not right that you would have to feel vulnerable at all, but in this world we’ve all lost the right to be naïve. You’ve done nothing to invite the attention, most women don’t invite it. But we live in a world full of people with no respect for themselves and that extends outward to everyone they meet. It’s awful, ridiculous, unfair and often mind blowing. I’m sorry you had to go through that, but there’s no logic in the illogical😦. Keep your head up!

This issue of vulnerability is central. The perception of a potential victim by a potential predator!
A couple of comments have suggested women assuming victim status falsely. This is not the case with the authoress, clearly as she has her keys clenched and is in a state of heightened awareness! In any case it would be a crazy thing to make up, like having a narcissistic hateful imaginary friend!! I think that particular criticism of feminists is a mainstay of the victim shame argument!
I am a trans woman. I don’t scrub up too badly, lol, so I do attract some attention. Sadly the state of extreme fetishisation of trans women in porn, and the high incidence of transgendered in sex industry, the attention is often “how much for a ****”! We are already dehumanised to pronoun *it* in many mens’ minds!
I spent many years in mortal fear of hate or lust fuelled attack, so I trained and I trained in all the martial arts and self defence disciplines I could! I am six foot and pre transition worked as a steel monkey! I am a tough lady, lol, but it still didn’t stop me getting datedrugged! (The happy ending here is my tenacity allowed my to escape on a bicycle! I was black and blue from falling off but otherwise unviolated)!
I am also lesbian! I mention this obviously, when I feel I am being harassed but it is apparently a come on to say, “Sorry but I like women”! A conquest perhaps, or a battle of domination, or perhaps in some sad individual’s mind, the possibility of *two for the price of one*.
I have just read a great article about the way in which modern men are vulnerable themselves to the effect of prolific internet porn upon not only their expectations of sex itself, but their understanding of womens’ roles as *duty* to them and their sexual appetite. This is the sense of *entitlement* that we see in the likes of Brock Turner for example.
I am not sure what the quick fix is?! Stay in the light. Make sure people know where you are. Practice Jiu Jitsu!! All the usual sensible stuff. Long term, I think it falls to the good guys to appeal to the rest to give up objectification and evolve into something better.
Once again, this is a great article. Just the positive discussion it has promoted is some way toward a solution.

You are very obnoxious! I don’t know either who the bejeebers you think *you* are, or when these *good old days* you purport to have time travelled from where?? Transgender people have always existed it’s just nowadays some of us manage to walk tall and ain’t afraid of narrow minded hatemongers!
Worthy of note that it is very easy to be offensive to a stranger via online messaging, but I would actually dare you to do that to my face

Everything this guy said and did was about him – his character, his moronic behavior, his fleabag personality… and NOTHING to do with you. What people do and say are really about themselves. If this moran couldn’t take a hint and physically approached me, well I am not against physical defenses for protection, but otherwise I would have just ignored him. And no, we can’t change people, some people (men and women) simply do not care about other people and that comes back to who they are. That is why I have no problem being a b*itch when I need to be. And if they want compliment my awesome insights about men who fair no higher intelligence and moral conviction than a dog… why I’m honored 🙂

What a sad state of affairs. Our society and our communities suffer from dysfunction almost everywhere we look. It’s no longer reasonable for a person to have an expectation that another person will respect them and treat them with decency. Idiots have existed since the dawn of time, but it seems that in today’s Petri dish of valueless ethics, idiots flourish. Today the issue of whether a behaviour or any action for that matter is right or wrong is irrelevant. Today the mantra “can I get way with it?”. With a self-absorbed society obsessed with self-gratification it’s no wonder creeps will be boldly opportunistic because who knows? The creep might get lucky? So I agree we need to keep making noise , but what sort of noise? When unarmed people get shot on account of the colour of their skin, when UN aid workers get bombed because of a single man’s insane ego, when domestic violence continues unabated, don’t tell me that our society has got its act together. As a society our values, ethics and integrity have gone down the toilet – read Rachel’s post again and you will find the proof.

It’s an interesting blog. None of my female friends or family complain about frequently being leered at, oggled at, sexually assaulted and beat up in public. Perhaps you’ve just been unlucky? Of course the man who called you a s*** is dickhead, but does that make him representative of all males? What if he was a certain ethnicity or religion, would that ethnicity/religion also then then be implicated as mysoginist? I dont think its fair to extrapolate isolated cases of abuse, sexism etc onto all men, as if this is somehow a “male” problem. What you need to realise there is going to be a certain % of population, a small minority, who are dickheads. Whether its a lack of intelligence, education or poor upbringing there will always be dickheads who will go out their way to be dickheads. And its not just women they attack, its men too, men are more frequently victims of random violence than women. But we dont get to pull out the mysoginy card and have a hissy fit about “public male spaces” and have our whinges published on news websites. So due the media bias it appears women are more statistically victims but the opposite is actually true.

As for the man offering to help you inflate the tyres, this is such a benign act its not even worth publishing. There is nothing wrong with offering to help other people, and how such a benign misguided act of kindness can be twisted into a depraved act of mysoginy reveals a lot about your attitude towards men. Perhaps he liked you and wanted to strike up a conversation, or thought you were genuinely struggling, but you immediately pigeonholed and demonised as a horrible mysoginist deserving of your contempt. As a man we are under pressure to know how to react in certain situations, next time we see a woman pulled over to the side of the road with the hood up do we offer to help or do we risk the wrath of being publicly humiliated and labelled a woman hater? Do we talk to girl at the bus station we like or will she call the police on us? Lets not even mention chilvary, lest I have hordes of feminists on my doorstep beating my door down.

Whether you realise it or not there is definitely an anti male, misandric streak in your article. Ive just wondered if youve done soul searching and considered whether you have a problem with men? I just dont feel responsible for what some other douche says or does. Just because we have the same genitals doest mean that i have some ownership of your experiences. This is the same twisted logic that people use to vilify Muslims, that Islam is somehow responsible for terrorism rather than the actual culprits. In your case it is actualy the culprits who are at fault, not societal mysoginy, nor the patriarch, just the culprits, who or may not happen to have testicles.

So you can shout all you like, but you need to stop demonising, shaming and blaming men for your isolated experiences and making poor and simplistic generalisations based on binary notions like gender. Its obviously a gross oversimplifation to reduce the problem to just maleness, when there may be far more complex causal factors at play here like genetics, nature, nurture and culture/religion. Gender may some play role but you have keep it in perspective rather and the perspective is that the vast majority of men abhor these kinds of behaviours and they are committed by a small minority.

Hopefully you can loosen up a bit in your future blogs and try not to be so spiteful towards men generally.

Thank you VERY MUCH Ollie!
That is the most realistic and educational post on this thread. We as men do have a hard time deciding how to be in various situations. If you like a girl, what is the appropriate way to convey this? If you want to be kind or chivalrous will it be taken negatively? These days it is so convulsing and it is becoming a crime to be a man act like a man or have masculine thoughts. Society is being taken over by confused homosexual and trans gendered “individuals” and the majority considers this cool and normal. Then we wonder why everything is going to hell… It’s because normal people, normal thoughts and normal actions are being criminalized!

Protesting a bit too much at the LGBT, (IMHO)! Most gay and trans people are just *taking over* their own lives, so unless you go looking they don’t even effect you.
Also, to *sensitively* show another person you are interested in them is not what the article was about really now is it?
The authoress is flagging up hateful, scary, highly sexual catcalling and the possible ensuing aggression that comes often when alcohol and testosterone mix in large quantities! If you don’t indulge in these hideous behaviours then good on you to be honest!
Sadly, however, many more men do… Enough to make the streets a pretty scary or even dangerous place sometimes.

Ok. People, I’m a little angry right now, and I really dislike anger… I’ll try to be coherent.

I’ve just had yet another ‘this just happened’ story from yet another female friend. Right when I was just thinking about all your stories and responses… and I was thinking how cool some of you are for the way you’ve stood up, because I feel I have to be very careful about how I stand up.

I am male, I am a stupidly large white male living in a society dominated by white males, still, in a western country, in 2016.
There are a lot of things I don’t like about my society.
However, I still managed to get it, it took a while to deprogram, and frankly, thank you all, for the final deprogramming I needed.
I am angry, even though all through my childhood I was viciously beaten by a stupidly large white male who called himself my father – see where my dislike of anger and violence comes from?

I am angry because yet again I have had to offer, to yet another female friend, to go around to a house and politely ask to speak to the parents of a young male, who believes its ok to threaten a woman with unspeakable acts of violence… and yes, the so-called causative factor is…sex.

I have had to offer to do this because my friend can not get an apprehended violence order from a magistrate fast enough, and she feels, correctly, that the order provides very little in the way of protection.
So, yet again, I need to offer, and expose myself to potential violence, in order to try to put a lid on a very real risk of violence.
Is it a male issue, a female issue, a religious or cultural issue? Its a human issue, and its all of those other things as well.
My final deprogramming was around being a stupidly large white male and how I can be perceived, very easily, as yet another violent male.
For that reason I choose my words and actions very carefully and be very careful of being intolerant.

I imagine your friend feels very lucky to have you on side. Nice one for standing up as it is intolerable and you stand out in a good light for championing her cause!
I reckon even Ghandi would’ve agreed!

Hey Dolly.
I do not have a sufficiently developed character to be like Ghandi.
I’m not mannered enough to be like Mary Poppins (you know that scene where she makes a little face, puts down her tea cup and, in a mannered way, steps up and smacks wrong stuff up?).

I’m Australian and my society was really crap, and the main way we made ok progress was through a message of tolerance. Ok progress over a 50 year span thru a message of simple tolerance.
Now I’m having to think about intolerance. I only have really negative social messages about intolerance to draw from.

A pretty good Australian feminist, Clementine Ford has just published “Fight like a girl” in which she (amongst other things) shows the rubbish (like rape and murder threats) she receives, through media, for having a think and voicing her thoughts.
She deals with it by responding intolerantly (imo) and smacking back, and does it so damn well. I am sure that at some point, if it hasn’t already happened, some fool will threaten to stab her through her baby and into her womb, probably while having raping her. Sigh. The cost of intolerantly responding to intolerable voices.

I don’t know how to fight like a girl, I don’t want to fight like a man. I don’t want to fight… but I think that maybe I need to fight like an ordinary person who just tries to be a decent human and learn to fight like that.

How to fight effectively and gain my, considered, desired outcomes about equality, with the least effort? I don’t know how to do that, but, some stuff is just damn intolerable.

I am thinking that I should try a mix: Ghandi, Mary Poppins, Vincent Lingiari with a dash of Muhammad Ali. That might be the spread that my children need to have an equality based country.